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Braves try for another outburst against Cubs

Baseball Betting Lines

04/07/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Regarded as one of the top prospects in all of baseball, Atlanta's Jason Heyward lived up the hype for a least one day.

Heyward will try to help the Braves open the season with two straight wins for the second year in a row this evening, when they host the Chicago Cubs in the second contest of a three-game set from Turner Field.

Expectations have risen steadily for Heyward since the Braves took the Atlanta resident 14th overall in the 2007 draft. He hasn't disappointed yet, as he turned window-smashing homers in spring training into an Opening Day start on Monday versus the Cubs. It didn't take long for the 20-year-old to make an impact, as he crushed a three-run homer with his first major league swing in the first inning of his first big-league game, helping Atlanta to a 16-5 victory over Chicago.

Heyward was the fifth Brave to homer in his first at-bat and helped Atlanta claim its biggest Opening Day victory since a 21-6 defeat of the Orioles way back in 1896.

"It was loud, for sure," said Heyward about the noise after his blast. "The home run put the team ahead and that's what it felt like."

Heyward finished with four RBI, and his homer was part of a six-run first inning for the Braves that erased an early 3-0 deficit. The Cubs' Marlon Byrd had put his club ahead with a three-run homer in the top of the inning.

Yunel Escobar had two hits and drove in a career-high five runs for the Braves, while Brian McCann connected on a solo homer. That helped give Derek Lowe (1-0) the win in his second straight Opening Day start for Atlanta, despite allowing five runs over six innings.

Cubs starter Carlos Zambrano (0-1) wasn't as lucky. He matched the shortest outing of his career by yielding eight runs over 1 1/3 frames of work. Jeff Samardzija gave up another six runs (4 earned) in relief for a Chicago team that led the majors in the spring with four shutouts to go along with a team earned run average of 4.24.

"It's just one game," said Aramis Ramirez, who also homered for the Cubs. "Hopefully they'll pick it up and they will. It was just one of those days where they hit everything."

The Cubs will next try to solve 24-year-old Braves starter Jair Jurrjens, who is coming off an excellent 2009 season in which he went 14-10 with the NL's third-lowest ERA at 2.60.

Jurrjens, who battled right shoulder inflammation in the spring, went 4-0 with a 0.97 ERA in his final five starts in 2009, a season in which he held opponents to a pair of runs or less in 26 of his 34 starts.

The right-hander did lose his only other career start versus Chicago, giving up four runs on seven hits over six innings of a July 6 loss. The Cubs' Derek Lee connected on a two-run homer in the first inning of that meeting.

The Cubs counter with Ryan Dempster, who saved 85 games with Chicago from 2005-07 but enters his third straight season as a full-time starter for the club.

The 32-year-old righty started off slow in 2009, going 1-1 with a 5.40 ERA in his first five starts. However, he was 5-2 with a 2.27 ERA in his last nine outings of last season, helping him post season totals of 11-9 with a 3.65 ERA.

Dempster is 2-11 with a pair of saves and a 5.14 ERA in 26 career games versus the Braves, 15 of those starts.

Atlanta won four of the six 2009 meetings between these teams and took two of three from the Cubs in Chicago's lone visit to Turner Field.